LED headlights anyone?

[kamikadzzze]

Hi all,
just got my xc90 from 2011 and I am reading forums a lot. As I understand the standart headlights of xc90 are not very impressive and often cause people to change the bulb to get good enough results. I had not driven in dark yet, so I do not have an opinion myself but wanted to look around and could not find any information on the matter here (maybe I am bad at this?). Maybe the reason is that volvo monitors the amount of wats used by the lights so LED can often cause warnings on the dashboard - not OK.But if that is the case there is no way someone did not find a way around it, like using aditional resistors or something. Maybe even a good manifactor that has found a solution to the errors?
Please post a link if such thread already exists!
So my question is:
Has anyone used LED lights? What is your wisdom?

[Tannaton]

It's not so much that the Volvo electronics monitor the headlamp wattage - it's the method of electronic switching that's used to control headlights and extend bulb life. This is different for traditional halogen lamps and HID/Xenon lamps - it is programmed into the system at manufacture and cannot be changed (even by a dealer).

This is why using HID or LED bulbs in Volvo headlamps designed for halogen lamps is difficult and often doesn't work - not to mention it isn't legal (in the UK)

That said retrofit LED kits (legal issues aside) are getting better, that vast majority of the earlier H7 kits were a disaster when it comes to the resulting beam pattern.

Upgraded halogen bulbs - such as a PIAA hyper Arros from Powerbulbs, also work well. The factory Volvo bulbs are optimised for long life and hence their light output is slightly down on what can be done reliably.

If I was upgrading a XC90 with Halogen lamps, I would buy a second hand set of ABL Bi Xenons and change the HID bulbs to LED - but you would need to find a way of locking out the motors and keep a spare set of halogens for MOT time. I'm not recommending the above, just saying if you do have a go I think that's your lesser of all evils. They key point with this route is you are using a unit with a projector - not a reflector.

[kamikadzzze]

Thank you for that!
In my case I have a projector - curved glass in front of the low beam light like this:
€ ) =
where € is the bulb, ) is the curved glass, = is the beam of light
My bulb is actually a xenon and it is only 35w, so maybe I dould be a good candidate to try out LED ones. I do not live in UK(as you can see from my bad English), and here this is perfectly legal. I am not sure if I need it yet but I was very surprised that there was not a single thread about it.
If someone has tryied specific brand/model or have any recomendations on what should be good to try out - please do let me know (PM is also an option if legal problems are an issue)

[Harley Dave]

I don't know what the situation is in Bulgaria, but here in the UK we are allowed to discuss these things.

It is not allowed however to install LED headlamps in vehicles of a certain age as they will fail the annual vehicle certification test (MoT)

Good Luck

Cheers

Dave

[Tannaton]

Originally Posted by kamikadzzze

Thank you for that!
In my case I have a projector - curved glass in front of the low beam light like this:
€ ) =
where € is the bulb, ) is the curved glass, = is the beam of light
My bulb is actually a xenon and it is only 35w, so maybe I dould be a good candidate to try out LED ones. I do not live in UK(as you can see from my bad English), and here this is perfectly legal. I am not sure if I need it yet but I was very surprised that there was not a single thread about it.
If someone has tryied specific brand/model or have any recomendations on what should be good to try out - please do let me know (PM is also an option if legal problems are an issue)

If you already have Xenon projector lights - they should be very good. If you aren't happy - change the bulbs first with quality branded lamps (Osram, Philips etc.) as with all filament and discharge lamps the output deteriorates with age. But working properly, the Volvo ABL projectors are very good.